


MarriageQuest

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Undercover, Undercover as Married, Unresolved Sexual Tension, bonding fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:53:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5234900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just excuses for bonding and UST and sharing a bed. (Look elsewhere for plot.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	MarriageQuest

“This,” Coulson pulls up a picture of a small compound outside LA, “is the location of the MarriageQuest marriage retreat.”

Daisy and Mack both look really unimpressed as he scans through the website, announcing the presence of both a licensed couples counselor and a sex therapist. There are pictures of the landscape, some of the well-appointed buildings, and some of the clients — all heterosexual, mostly white, all apparently wealthy.

“Is there a reason we’re looking at a marriage retreat website, Coulson?”

“There have been a string of disappearances, possibly because of this.”

Which is when he pauses on the final picture — a still shot of a group session, everyone sitting around a large black rock that looks very much like —

“Is that…” Mack trails off, squinting at the image.

“There’s another one?” Daisy perks up at this, at the idea that there’s finally finally something they can do, something besides sitting around waiting for anything to happen.

“That’s what I need you to find out,” he tells, them.

“Wait, is this an undercover mission?” Daisy asks the question while Mack just makes a face behind her.

“That’s the idea,” Coulson agrees.

“Undercover as a married couple,” Mack clarifies, his voice letting on that he thinks it sounds like a terrible idea.

“There’s a four day retreat that begins on Thursday, with space left for one couple.”

“All due respect, sir, but I don’t think Daisy and I can pull that off.”

“Why not?”

“You know _I’ll_ stick out there badly enough,” Daisy suggests, pointing at the group of all-white people gathered around what looks like a replica of the monolith.

“With me beside her, we’ll stand out too much to blend in,” Mack agrees.

“Send Bobbi and Hunter?” Daisy interjects, but Coulson shakes his head.

“I’m not letting Hunter into any more delicate field operations, and I need _you_ on this.”

She nods because that’s a given —  

“Maybe _you_ and Daisy should go,” Mack pipes in, looking almost _too_ innocent at the suggestion.

Daisy shoots Mack a dirty look, and Coulson kind of wants to be offended, but at the same time he gets it.

He and Daisy haven’t exactly been in the best place since everything shook out with the ATCU, since Price tried to take her (again), since Lincoln took off (again), since Ward got away. (Again.)

She’s kept her distance, more closed off — even with Mack, he thinks. He never sees them relaxing together anymore, never sees her doing anything that looks like relaxing or opening up or anything besides working.

“We’ll discuss it later,” Coulson allows, but his stomach sinks. He doesn’t have another option, not someone who is field-ready, who is able to back her up in case it’s necessary.

It’s sort of sad how much he dreads the idea, since he thinks that just a few months ago, some extra time alone with Daisy would have pretty much been a dream come true.

But things are what they are.

  


* * *

 

  


“Is there a particular reason you’re so reticent about this?”

They’re in his office alone, trying to come to an agreement, and he never thought it would be this hard. And well, it’s not like he’s _excited_ about it, not like he doesn’t have his doubts, but the amount that she’s closed off about the prospect of spending the weekend with him is almost alarming.

“Besides the fact that I hate therapy?”

“You’ll be undercover. It’s not real therapy, nothing personal. Is that really bothering you?”

“No,” she sighs. “It’s _awkward_ Coulson.”

“Would it be it that awkward?”

Daisy furrows her eyebrows at him, like she can’t believe he’s asked this question.

“Yeah, it really would.”

He nods once, but his confusion must still show on his face.

“Do you think a marriage retreat is the kind of place where they let you book two rooms?”

“I would bring a sleeping bag,” he dismisses this concern.

“I wouldn’t let you sleep on the _floor_ , Phil,” she rolls her eyes.

“Why not?”

“Why wouldn’t I want you to be uncomfortable? Is that a serious question?”

It makes him smile more than it probably should, strikes him as the nicest thing Daisy has said to him in a while. Not that she’s been directly unkind — she could never be that — just that she’s been avoiding him, avoiding moments when she might otherwise be kind.

“We can figure out sleeping arrangements,” he dismisses the concern. “The important thing is —”

“The monolith, yeah. Yeah, I know.” She’s silent for a long moment, looking around the room like she’s running through potential scenarios. “And it has to be...I mean, I have to have a _husband_? I can’t take May or Bobbi?”

“Why are you trying so hard to get rid of me?”

She smiles at him, a brittle smile, maybe the most honest look she’s given him in months.

“I can’t... _compartmentalize_ like you can.”

“Daisy —”

“Just answer my question.”

“Yes, you need a _husband_.”

“Then this retreat is definitely bullshit.”

“I never said it wasn’t.”

She huffs an annoyed breath.

“Do we need a cover story?”

“No, just fake names of two people who work too much and want to...revitalize things.”

She nods once.

“I’ll get on it.”

  


* * *

 

  


Doctor Vincent and Doctor Emily — and there are names that inspire confidence in their medical expertise — greet them when they pull up to the large compound in one of the nondescript SUVs.

Their therapists and hosts for the week are a married couple themselves, and they make a big show out of finishing each other’s sentences as they lead Daisy and Coulson — or rather, Laura and Mark Johnson — to their room for the long weekend.

“We’ve got half an hour until our first group session,” Daisy tells him as they set down their bags.

The room isn’t large — a king bed takes up most of the floor space besides the small desk and arm chair. It looks like the kind of setup meant to make it impossible for one of them to sleep anywhere other than the bed.

“They’re going to keep us busy,” he agrees.

“I’m not sure how we’re going to find time to look for the monolith.” She frowns as she examines the schedule, which lays out intensive fourteen hour days of activities and counseling.

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah.”

When Daisy looks up from the schedule, her eyes land on the bed, and he doesn’t even understand the way she’s looking at it — like it’s somehow terrifying.

“Daisy, are you going to be okay with this?”

“Yeah, of course,” she answers, fake smile plastered across her face — the one that’s too falsely pretty, too falsely nice.

“It’s just a part of doing this kind of work.”

“I know, Coulson. When you’ve been doing this as long as you have, it’s easy for you.”

He takes a breath, not sure how to respond to that, and is interrupted by a knock at the door. One of their hosts, here to escort them to the group session.

“Well, _Mark_ , I guess we’re doing this.”

And her smile doesn’t change, she looks exactly the same, but somehow she’s inhabiting her role, someone deeply unsettled in her life and her relationship, and it makes him hurt.

“After you,” he escorts her to the door, but doesn’t touch her.

  


* * *

 

  


There are nine other couples on the retreat, in addition to the Doctors Vincent and Emily, and they start slowly with ‘getting to know you’ exercises in a circle of loveseats, the kind of questions that seem mostly harmless.

Coulson quickly realizes that nothing this weekend is going to be mostly harmless, though.

“And how did you meet?” Emily asks the group, and then points to one of the couples — the Watsons, who appear to have a similar gap in their ages to him and Daisy.

He half-listens to their story, first his version then hers — friends of friends, a setup, nothing memorable — while looking over at Daisy, remembering the real actual way he met her. He can still remember it, opening the door of her van and seeing her there for the first time.

He doubts she remembers that so clearly, but maybe he had a better understanding of it as important. (He’d listened to her podcasts how many times?)

“We met at work,” Daisy is telling the group suddenly, and he startles that he had faded out on it. “I was fascinated by the way he did things, and I wanted to learn.” She shrugs her shoulders, like that’s all there is to it, and he frowns.

“I was fascinated by the way _you_ did things,” he tells her, talking directly to her like there _is_ no group.

“You wanted to figure me out,” her eyes dart to his and then down to her lap. “And then you did.”

“And you were even better than I had imagined.”

She looks up, surprised, and locks eyes with him, her lips slightly parted, and he can almost see the way her pulse picks up, the way her skin gets subtly flushed.

He wonders if she can see it in his face, how much he’s always loved her.

“See,” Vincent cuts in, “how reliving these moments can make us remember why we fell in love in the first place.”

And then the circle moves on, more couples sharing their stories, but he can’t pay attention to them, can only look over at Daisy. She keeps looking back, her eyes soft and wide, and he wants to look at her all day.

“Great job,” Emily cuts off the final couple, who can’t seem to agree on their story at all. “Now I’m going to pass out these personality profiles; they’ll help us dig a little deeper into some of your emotional needs.”

And he’s pretty sure it’s just a modified Meyers-Briggs, but the letter combinations have been replaced with sixteen pieces of fruit.

“I hope I’m a blueberry,” he whispers, and Daisy smiles at him — maybe the first real smile he’s seen from her in months.

“You’re obviously a mango.”

  


* * *

 

  


“Ready?”

She’s whispering even though he’s pretty sure they’re alone, everyone else in bed after a day of identifying their fruits and intimately discussing the details of their personality types.

Daisy is the mango it turns out: independent and idealistic and able to see the connections in the world and a lot of traits that have nothing to do with mangoes, as near as he can tell.

Except that he likes them — her and all her traits and also mangoes.

He’s apparently a peach: idealistic but pragmatic, and more sensitive than he lets on, maybe even to himself.

“Prone to bruising,” Daisy had whispered, had dragged her thumb above his right eyebrow as though remembering a past injury, before catching herself and looking embarrassed.

It still tingles now, hours later, after trust falls and some sort of obstacle course and too much discussion about the compatibility of fruit.

“Yeah,” Coulson agrees.

They’ve changed into black, armed themselves with flashlights and a device to scan the object should they find it, and are walking to the building furthest from the various cabins used as sleeping quarters.

“I still don’t understand why the fruit,” Daisy tells him conversationally as they dart around the back of a cabin. She can feel vibrations, she says, of anyone who might be nearby, so he doesn’t feel too bad about being a little cavalier here.

“I guess it’s more fun?”

“At least you got a good fruit. Everyone loves peaches. Mangoes are all...stringy.”

“Mmm, you’ve been eating the wrong kind of mango.”

“There are kinds of mangoes?”

“Yeah. When we get back, we’re eating mangoes. Good juicy ones.”

“And peaches?”

“If you want,” he agrees.

“I do. I like peaches.”

And there’s something flirty there, something he might pick up if they weren’t walking up to the door of the small cabin where they’re beginning the search.

“Shall I?” He asks, gesturing at the lock with the lockpick tools he’s brought, but Daisy shakes her head and sets her hand on the mechanism.

It’s a delicate thing, he can tell — surgical precision, no wanton destruction — and it only takes her about twenty seconds to pop it open.

“That was so cool,” he breathes, and she just looks back at him and smiles, raised eyebrow like she knows, but she’s glad to hear it. “How did you do that?”

“Each pin vibrates at a different frequency, so I just…”

“Moved them all one by one, just like picking it.”

“But way faster,” she agrees.

“What else can you do that I don’t know about?”

“We could arrange some demonstrations,” she offers, and it’s _definitely_ flirty. Flirty in a way Daisy hasn’t been lately, and he’s suddenly stupidly grateful for suspicious therapists who might have an alien artifact and homophobic marriage retreats and labored metaphors about fruit salad.

“I’d like that,” he agrees, a little breathless as they turn on their flashlights and step inside.

  


* * *

 

  


They don’t find it, but he’d never expected to find it on their first night, not when there are so many identical buildings to search. And worst case scenario, they’ll stay for the full retreat and get near it the old fashioned way.

When they return to the room, it’s late, and he thinks they’ll have trouble waking up for the early morning session, even though they’re both pretty accustomed to early mornings.

“Do you want me to sleep in the chair?”

He makes the offer even though she’s already shot down the idea of him sleeping elsewhere, even though she’s already placed his comfort at a higher priority than her own.

It almost makes him more concerned, almost makes him want to give her more space, but he’s not sure his back could really take it.

“No, Coulson,” she sighs. “It’ll be okay.”

He watches her disappear into the bathroom and changes quickly into his pajamas while she’s gone, is ready to change places seamlessly once she’s done. He’s surprised when he comes out that she hasn’t climbed in, like she’s waiting for him to stake a claim to a side.

First, though, he takes off the prosthetic — the newest model is composed of synthetic skin, something that easily fools the untrained eye. And he’s taken off his prosthetic in front of plenty of people, but never her, so it makes him weirdly self-conscious.

“I’ve never seen you do that,” she points out when he’s stowed it away, as though she’d been thinking the same thing he was.

She looks at his arm without judgement or pity, like it’s just what it is, like it’s just another part of him.

“I didn’t want to burden you with it,” he finally offers by way of explanation.

She nods, and they climb into bed, turn off the lights.  

“I don’t mind if you burden me with things,” Daisy tells him, voice soft in the darkness.

“I’ll remember that.”

Falling asleep next to her is easy, it turns out. Like having her nearby is a formula for no bad dreams, for peace and comfort, he dozes easily, happily.

Waking up, though, is hard.

During the night, they’ve both gravitated to the middle of the bed, and he drifts into consciousness with her chest pressed against his back, his ass fitted against the slightly soft lower part of her belly, her hand draped across his chest protectively.

He shouldn’t like it so much, is his thought, but he feels _safe_ in a way he hasn’t very often since everything happened. Like she’s got his back.

And it’s absurd because Daisy has always had his back; even when it’s been difficult lately, she’s been there. But it feels _good_ to have her touching him, to feel her hand over his heart.

That’s his excuse for not moving away even though he knows he probably should, even though he knows she’ll be embarrassed.

He can feel it as she wakes up, her body pressing more close to his and her hand clutching slightly at his chest, and he pretends to be asleep.

“I knew this was gonna happen,” she whispers, and he wonders if she’s saying it to him. “I know you’re awake, Coulson, I can feel the difference.”

“Sorry,” he murmurs, but he also snuggles backwards against her, presses himself more firmly into the cradle of her hips, slides his hand up to rest against hers over his heart.

She sighs behind him, something a little resigned and a little pleased, and curves her arms tighter around his chest.

They hit the snooze button four times, and then have to race out of their cabin for breakfast.

  


* * *

 

 

The morning proceeds remarkably normally, like he didn’t wake up this morning with her body pressed against his, and they sit down at the group session to talk about _issues_.

“We both work a lot,” Daisy shares. “Like basically all the time. And I always thought it was good because it’s something we have in common. But lately…”

“There’s distance,” Coulson finishes her thought, and yeah, the fake crappy group therapy sessions are maybe too real.

“And what can you do to close that distance?” Doctor Emily asks.

“Last night, she told me that I don’t have to try so hard not to burden her with things.”

“And Laura, what about you?”

Daisy shrugs her shoulders, looks a bit at a loss.

“The same,” Coulson cuts in. “I won’t leave if you ask me for things.”

He can see it in her face, in the way she opens her eyes too wide to keep tears from slipping out and in the brave quiver of her jaw, so he stands up from the loveseat and pulls her with him.

“We need —”

Both their counselors wave them out the door.

“Shit, Coulson,” she whispers once they’re away from the building and she’s no longer afraid of emoting for an audience. “That was too real.”

“I know.”

She swallows.

“Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” he answers, cups her cheek softly in his palm. “Of course I meant it. I’m not going anywhere, no matter what.”

“Even if I tell you I’ve been _angry_?”

“Believe it or not, that was actually kind of apparent.”

“I didn’t mean for it to be,” she tells him, apologizing for herself, for feeling her own feelings, because she’s Daisy and that’s what she does. “I didn’t mean to be angry at all.”

“But either way, I’m still here.”

She looks at him like maybe she’ll hug him, like it means so much just to know he’ll stay, but instead she pulls back and wipes her fingers over her eyes.

“We should probably break into their office to check on things.”

“Yeah,” he agrees.

  


* * *

 

 

Doctor Emily is the licensed sexologist, which means their afternoon session turns towards the topic of sex.

“We believe that as couples work through their emotional issues, it’s also helpful to discuss sexual issues — not to assume that just because we solve problems in one part of the relationship, they’ll be solved in another. But don’t worry, sexology is purely talk therapy.”

She pauses for awkward laughs.

“Do you think Simmons would recognize a degree in sexology?” Daisy whispers against Coulson’s ear, and her breath makes the hairs on his neck stand up, makes him shiver almost violently.

Still, he manages to hold himself in check, to stifle a laugh and shake his head, but he’s still a bit distracted from the nearness of her when he’s called on to tell the story of Mark and Laura’s first time.

It’s, frankly, not a story he and Daisy had felt the need to agree on before hand, so Coulson finds himself winging it.

“We barely knew each other, but I was already...smitten. I took her out for lunch, and she was wearing this short red dress.”

“You remember my dress?”

He can’t tell what’s going on in her expression — a little flattered maybe, more than a little surprised, nothing close to anger or disgust.

“Yeah,” he answers, swallowing against the image. “Your legs were…”

“Huh, I never knew.”

Their eyes meet, Daisy smirking at him, and Coulson can feel himself turn pink.

“And then what, _Mark_?”

She holds his gaze, makes it impossible to look away.

“There was no call from headquarters, nothing we had to do, so I could pull over in this big empty field and slide my hand over your knee and then up your leg, under your dress.”

Someone in the room coughs, startling them to look away from each other, to remember that they’re not actually alone.

“And how long has it been since you took a drive together in your car, Mark?” Their _sexologist_ asks.

“A really long time.”

  


* * *

 

 

“Daisy,” he catches her elbow when they break for lunch, pulls her around the back of the cabin where they do the counseling sessions to a private spot. “About…”

“It wasn’t real,” she tells him, or maybe asks him, or maybe begs him.

“No,” he agrees because obviously it wasn’t. His fantasies about feeling up Daisy’s thigh have never happened.

“You needed to come up with something, and you drew on a real moment, and that’s all.”

He nods once.

It’s a lie — because the thought of running his hand up her thigh, up under her dress, up until he could push his fingers inside of her, is _not_ a new one by any stretch — but he nods.

“Okay.”

And he follows her out from behind the cabin, more than a little disappointed even though he has no reason to be.

He swears he used to be good at compartmentalizing this stuff.

  


* * *

 

 

That night, they get through five more cabins, all identical from the outside, before they find one that has a basement.

“Ohhh, suspicious,” Daisy jokes, opening up a trap door and looking down.

“It looked like the thing in the picture wasn’t contained,” Coulson reminds her, “so if it’s down there…”

“It could be dangerous,” she agrees, and then pulls a small drone out of her backpack. “That’s why I stole this guy.”

Coulson laughs as she sets it up, along with her laptop, and sends it down into the basement.

“I didn’t know you’d brought more stuff.”

“It seemed like a good idea,” she shrugs.

“It was.”

There’s nothing there, and they have to get back to their own room before it gets any later. He feels guilty that he’s enjoying himself when there maybe a dangerous artifact nearby, but he _is_ — working with Daisy like this is fun.

“We should do more fieldwork together,” she suggests to him on their way back.

“I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course. You’re a great agent. And a great partner.”

Daisy glows at the praise, like it’s something generous instead of just a statement of fact.

“You’re not a bad partner, either,” she tells him, and bumps her shoulder against his congenially as they sneak back to their room.

  


* * *

 

 

But thinking _thoughts_ about Daisy, about Daisy’s _legs_ about _touching_ Daisy — it invades his dreams.

He dreams abstractly of touching her legs, of her legs wrapped around him, of her body hot against his.

So of course, during the night, he breaches the middle of the bed and presses himself against her.

He wakes up with his arms wrapped around her, clutching her supine body with his head buried in the curve of her neck, so that all he can see and smell is her skin surrounding him.

She smells amazing, sweet but musky, and it makes it easy to block out the thought that he shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be like this. He just wraps his arm tighter around her waist, curls more thoroughly into her side.

“Phil,” he hears her voice, soft like she’s not actually sure she wants to wake him, and then her fingernails drag softly across his scalp. The sensation is tingling warmth racing down his neck, down his spine, making his hips hot and his cock harder.

He whimpers, a helpless high pitched little sound, and squeezes his eyes shut tight like maybe if he doesn’t acknowledge that he’s awake, she won’t stop.

Daisy pauses, quivers just slightly like she’s trying to make a decision, and then does it again — runs her fingernails through his hair again and again, slow and soft and perfect until the tingling is all he can feel, until his cock is almost pulsing.

“Daisy,” he moans her name against the sensation and reflexively grinds his hips against her, cock pressed to her leg before he has a chance to think it through. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he mumbles and pulls back, still blinking against being awake.

“It’s okay.”

“No, I just —”

“It’s okay,” she repeats, and her eyes beg him not to make it a thing. So he doesn’t, or he at least tries not to. “Do you want to shower first?”

Coulson swallows and drags his eyes down the length of her bare neck. It’s just a tank top, something he’s seen her in a million times, but he can’t stand how good she looks, how soft her skin looks, how much he wants to touch her.

“Yeah,” he answers. “If you don’t mind.”

  


* * *

 

 

She’s more distant, more awkward, as they move from group breakfast to group session, which he guesses is normal for someone who woke up being dry humped by their boss.

If he even counts as her boss.

He doesn’t push things, though, just hangs back and gives her the space she seems to want until his hand is forced by another sexology session.

Today, they’re doing _touching_ — nothing sexual, just innocent touches meant to highlight the bond between them.

Apparently.

“Did we decide if sexology is even a real thing?” She murmurs under her breath, and Coulson has to stifle a laugh.

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not,” she sighs.

“Okay, men,” Emily announces, and Coulson has to hold back an eyeroll, “place your hand gently on your wife’s back.”

Coulson pauses, gives Daisy a sideways glance.

“Are you okay with that?”

“Yeah,” she answers, something in her eyes suggesting that she doesn’t understand why he’s even asking.

So he does, reaches over and sets his right hand in the middle of her back, fingers stretched wide. Her t-shirt is soft, well-worn cotton, and he flexes his fingers over it.

“Your job is to read your wife’s signals, and to figure out how she wants to be touched.”

Everyone in the room is still for a moment, and then they all turn inwards.

“Are you sending me signals?” He asks, mostly joking and probably too close to her ear.

“Hmmm,” is all she answers, and he can feel her arch just slightly against his palm, see the slight dip of her neck, so he runs his palm upwards, a soft touch across cotton and then skin, until his fingers are in her hair.

She exhales shakily, then draws her next breath and barely arches the other way, and he drags his fingers slowly down her spine until his hand sits in the curve of her lower back.

Another breath in, and he can feel her tense under his hand.

“Turn?” He whispers the request near her ear, and she does, sitting with her back to his front, just enough space between them that he can slide both his palms up to her shoulders.

He’s not touched anyone with this hand yet, not like this, and it’s different to do it when it _looks_ like his hand.

He squeezes her shoulders over her t-shirt, and then slips his thumbs under the collar.

It’s nerve wracking, if he’s honest, to touch her like this, and his fingers shake even after she lets herself go soft, rolling her shoulders back into his hands.

“Good?”

His voice is too high pitched, and he doesn’t understand himself, doesn’t understand his own nerves, doesn’t understand why such simple touch is so _arousing_.

“Relax,” Daisy whispers, and lets her whole body go limp until she she’s relaxed back against his chest.

He nods, even though she’s facing away from him.

“Do you think you’ll have to read my signals next?”

“I think I’m reading them pretty well already.”

  


* * *

 

 

She kisses him when they stop back at their room before lunch, hot and hard and pushed up against the door.

He’s too shocked to do anything at first, open mouthed and breathless and pinned up by the force of her body.

“Did I misread your signals?” Daisy asks, her voice low and needy, coming against his lips.

“No,” he manages to whisper, finally wraps his head around the fact that _this is happening_ , and gets his hands on her back, his lips against hers. “No,” he repeats more firmly as he palms his way down to her ass, to pull her up harder against him.

“Good.”

He groans when she pulls back, though, not ready to let her go.

“I wasn’t sure,” she tells him, her eyes too big and serious. “For a long time, I thought maybe you didn’t…”

“I _do_ ,” he corrects her. “I _have_.”

“That’s good, Phil.”

She kisses him again, presses her whole body up against him, and he can’t help but turn them — push her back up against the door so he can press himself closer, so he can guide her legs up and around his waist.

He grinds himself between her thighs, can almost feel the heat of her through two layers of denim, and groans in frustration.

“You wish I was wearing that dress right now, huh?” She murmurs against his lips, and he nods too adamantly.

“God yes.”

Daisy laughs, like he’s so incredibly amusing, and then pushes him backwards, drops her legs to the floor, and turns around.

“This’ll be faster,” she insists as she unbuttons her jeans.

“And fast matters?”

“Right now?” She looks back over her shoulder. “Yes.” He can hear her zipper go down. “We can do slow later, though.”

“I like slow,” he informs her, reaching around her body to cup her breasts over her shirt before he drags his right hand around behind her back and slides it up her spine, up until he’s curving it around her neck, until he’s combing his fingers through her hair.

“I do, too,” she whispers, dropping her head forward and letting him touch her softly. “But _God_ , Coulson, after this morning don’t you —”

“ _Yes_.”

He’s suddenly breathless, like it dawns on him _how much_ Daisy wants him, how much of her worry about coming on this trip with him was because she wanted him.

It’s dizzying to think about, and he grinds his still-clothed hips forward against her ass as she tugs her jeans down her thighs, baring herself to him.

He works quickly — jeans down just far enough, condom extracted from his wallet, hands shaking the whole time.

Once he’s ready, he drops his hand down to slip up between her thighs, to press against the wetness there, and she arches desperately into his touch.

“Hurry up,” she mumbles, face pressed to the wood, ass pressing back towards him. “Please.”

He pushes forward, forward enough that he can feel his cock slipping against her wetness, and Daisy reaches down to push him into place. But he pauses.

“I’m in love with you,” he whispers against the back of her neck because it’s suddenly really important that she _knows_ that this is about _that_ , just _that_.

Before she can respond he pushes forward, gritting his teeth against the tightness of her as he pushes inside.

It’s so _fast_ and messy, and it’s never how he’s imagined their first time but it fits them so well — finding a way to come together when there’s really no time, giving each other what they need the best way they can.

It fits them when he drops his hand back between her legs, trying to help her along, and it fits them when she helps him with fingers that move over his, and it fits them when they come together, plastered against the door.

She’s still shaking, collapsed against the door with goosebumps visible along her lower back, when he pulls out and ditches the condom, pitching it towards the trashcan. He misses, but he doesn’t really care, is much more invested in pressing himself against her back and laying soft kisses against the side of her face.

“I’m going to take my time with you tonight,” she promises, once she’s managed to pull herself together.

“Is that a fact?”

“Hmm,” she moans a quiet confirmation when he nips at her earlobe.

  


* * *

 

 

She doesn’t get a chance to make good on that promise, though.

They find the second monolith on the third night, hidden in a basement room, and the weekend comes to a fast halt at that. Mack and May show up with the Zephyr1 to take possession of it, to take their two hosts in for questioning, to send home the rest of the participants.

It all stretches well into the night, getting everything sorted out, making sure the object is well-contained, sifting through the office for information.

He’s finishing paperwork when the sun rises and Daisy walks into his office in her red dress, a thermos of coffee, and Lola’s keys dangling from her index finger.

“You wanna take a drive, Coulson?”

He just smiles, thinks about open fields and sliding his hand up her thigh.

  
  


 


End file.
